Viewpoint The Battalion Texas A&M University Wednesday June 27, 1979 ‘Euro-gratitude’ is non-existent Americans don’t get no respect. At 22, I have noticed a universal lack of esteem for the United States. It hacks me oflF because I think it’s a bum rap. I’m pretty tired of tinker-toy banana republics and twelfth-rate European principalities trying to push the U.S around. Whenever a country has been down, whether through the fault of the U.S. or not, we have invariably given them aid of some sort, usually financial. America is probably the only nation in the history of modem civilization that has been sneak-attacked, de feated its attacker and then actually gone into debt rebuilding the same. The Japanese, though, have paid their financial debts. Unfortunately, this is not the case with other nations. During the years immediately following World War II, the U.S. government literally rebuilt Europe. We felt it was our obligation; after all, they were our allies. Billions of U.S. dollars were and are invested in the continuing defense of Europe. Meanwhile, students in Europe call Americans ‘capitalist pigs’ and paint anti-American slogans on walls. The American Commander of NATO forces in Europe was nearly killed the other day by a land mine on a city street in Paris. That’s ‘Euro-gratitude.’ In Asia and Africa, thousands of Americans partici pate in organizations like the Peace Corps and other service organizations designed to aid the poor. Other Americans contribute millions of dollars to causes such as Save the Children, UNICEF, and CARE. At the same time, the president of Libya has offered political asylum to terrorists working against the capitalist system. We’re the capitalist system he’s refering to, folks. If it’s not the Koreans capturing the Pueblo, it’s some of Somoza’s goons killing an American journalist. You think we’d learn to completely avoid everyone else. The U.S. regularly sends disaster aid to Central America. When was the last time Nicaragua, Panama or any other country even offered to help out America during a disaster? The United States is getting a raw deal somewhere. An example: The U.S discovers pools of oil in the Middle East under sand where even tumbleweeds re fuse to grow. The local sheiks lease their land to Ameri can corporations to drill on. The sheiks, who thought a gallon of goat’s milk was a big deal before the oil com panies moved in, got a taste of Western life and liked it. People who once had the standard of living of a camel now live in houses with fifty-two rooms. Instead of rid ing mules to the market, these guys have air- con ditioned Bentleys and are driven to the airport, board their private jets and go to Neiman-Marcus in Houston for a gallon of goats milk! The Arabs got to be the richest men in the world because they “nationalized” (see stole ) U.S.-owned re fineries. And to top it off, now they’re jacking the price of oil sky-high. Some Americans want to jack up the price of wheat proportionately. That may not be the answer to the situation, but it may indeed show our “pals” abroad that we don’t like being pushed around. Giving the rest of the world a taste of its own medicine might be the cure for its chronic ingratitude. R.W.B. Rate of consumer purchasing power rises during presidential election years By DAVID BRODER WASHINGTON — When Jimmy Car ter became President in January 1977, the average blue-collar factory worker was pul ling down $5.07 an hour, or $181.51 a week. Run the latter figure through a Bureau of Labor Statistics computer to crank in adjustments for the inroads of in flation and taxes on a worker with a typical-size family, and you get a wonder fully sophisticated statistic — the season ally adjusted, average net spendable weekly earnings, after taxes, of a married production worker with three dependents, on a private, nonagricultural payroll, ex pressed in constant 1967 dollars. When Carter began his term, it translated to $91.25 a week. When George P. Shultz was in Wash ington, as secretary of labor, director of the budget, and finally, secretary of the treasury in the Nixon administration, he touted reporters onto that particular statis tic as the single most politically meaning ful of the thousands of numbers tossed out by the government. “That is about as close as we can come,” Shultz would say, “to measuring directly what the average working guy really cares about — whether his take-home pay buys more or less than it did before. If that number is increasing, an administration’s economic policies are likely to look suc cessful. If it’s not, that administration is in trouble.” The political history of the Nixon-Ford years confirmed Shultz’s prediction. And if his theory is still valid, which history suggests it is, it explains why President Carter is in such deep political trouble today and why it may take drastic eco nomic measures — price controls or a big tax cut or both — to pull him out of danger by November 1980. First, the history. When Richard Nixon became President in January 1969, the fac- NfCfpy* 4L. " tory worker’s take-home pay (always ex pressed in constant, inflation-adjusted 1967 dollars) was $91.42 a week. It bumped along on a fairly even keel for awhile, but then began to dwindle in the mild recession of 1970, dropping to $89.38 in October of 1970, just before the mid term election in which Democrats re pulsed Nixon’s big effort to gain Republi can control of Congress. Stung by that setback, the Nixon admin istration changed course and began pump ing up the economy. By August of 1971, when Nixon ordered wage-price controls into effect, the key indicator had climbed back up to $92.87. By October 1972, the month before Nixon faced the voters, it had reached its all-time high of $98.04. That handsome 7 percent increase in the average family’s buying power during Ni xon’s first term probably had as much to do with his landslide victory as the Peking and Moscow summit, the disengagement in Vietnam or the deficiencies of the McGovern campagin. A cynic looking at the figures could con clude that Nixon and Co. timed their eco nomic policies perfectly, for the key figure began to shrink the very month after the election. By August 1974, when Nixon was forced to resign, it was back down to $90.86. It dropped another $3.50 in the recession of 1975, before Jerry Ford turned his policy around and obtained a stimulative tax cut from Congress. In October 1976, just before the presi dential election, the figure stood at $91.40 a week — 2 cents less than it had been when Republicans took over the White House in 1969. That miniscule economic shortfall was an accurate forecast of the equally small degree by which Ford failed to convince the American voters to keep him office, rather than turn the White House over to Jimmy Carter. Carter’s benchmark — the January 1977 figure — is $91.25 a week. His 1977 tax- cut and economic stimulus package pushed the figure up to a $95.23 Carter administration high, nine months after he took office. It began to dwindle as inflation increased, but still was on the upside at $92.04 last October, just before the mid term election, when Democrats held their losses to a minimum. Since then, how ever, the key figure has dropped precipit ously, as inflation has outstripped earn ings. The preliminary figure for April — in the latest report — is $89.58. That figure — the lowest reported since the mid recession April of 1975 — may be artifi cially depressed by several short-term fac tors. But Charles L. Schultze, the chair man of Carter’s Council of Economic Ad visers, said in an interview, “The trend is an important one, and you can be sure it is being looked at.” Schultze said there was confirmation of the fact that “peoples’ incomes are being squeezed” in the reports showing that re tail sales, adjusted for inflation, have been declining since December. Under the administration’s battered wage-price guidelines, workers’ pay is simply not keeping pace with inflation. With petroleum prices zooming and signs of an economic slowdown becoming more plentiful, the key figure is likely dete riorate further. Already, it has weakened to the point that Carter’s reelection is in jeopardy. If it continues to move down, it is hard to be lieve that the administration will not be driven to the kind of last-ditch, despera tion economic policies that Nixon reached for back when George Shultz was watching the same numbers Charles Schultze now monitors. (c) 1979, The Washington Post Company More money for Congressional elections Public campaign financing not working By ARNOLD SAWISLAK United Press International WASHINGTON — When we built the interstate highway system, one of the goals was supposed to be rejuvenation of the cities by making it easier to get goods and people in and out of their congested cen ters. Instead, we gave the suburbs a giant boost as both bedrooms and workplaces with the big new roads, and at least for a while, made things economically and polit ically worse for the established cities and the people who remained in them. That was the kind of negative accom- E lishment that well meaning planners ave made infamous in recent decades. But it isn’t just public works enthusiasts who get us into situations that are just as bad or even worse than the original pre dicament. Public financing of election campaigns provides an example. Back in the heat of Watergate days, reformers jumped on the chance to get the “fat cats” out of politics by pushing public financing. In fairness, it should be said that groups like Common Cause tried very hard to get across-the-board legislation that would i. cover congressional as well as presidential campaigns. The Senate, in fact, approved congres sional public financing. But opposition in the House was led by one Wayne Hays of Ohio and he still had enough clout to stop the show. The big public objection against public financing of congressional races was that it was a waste of taxpayers’ hard-earned dol lars. The real beef was from incumbents, who failed to see why they should vote to provide campaign funds for their oppo nents. lid 11 rrmiiiifiMiimrnn-T^^ The reformers had to settle for financing of presidential elections only in 1974, al though the same legislation did provide for new controls on private contributions to congressional campaigns. Public financing for congressional campaigns was supposed to be the second step in the reform pro- Public financing of presidential cam paigns passed in part because Congress wanted to demonstrate that it had no part of the hanky-panky that was being dis closed in the White House. It is doubtful that many of the members of the Senate and House who voted for the bill did so because they saw potential windfalls for their own campaigns. But that’s what they got. With private donations to presidential campaigns bar red, a lot more money went into congres sional campaigns, especially in presiden tial election years when big contributors usually concentrated on the national con test. Candidates for House and Senate, espe cially incumbents, now are able to put on increasingly more lavish and sophisticated campaigns as the economic and political special interests concentrate their funds on congressional contests. Some congres sional candidates probably have come to think of the present situation as normal and all that new money from interest groups as their due. If that state of mind takes hold, no one should suspend brea thing waiting for that second step to be taken. STATE Nueces to seek Roloff indictment Nueces County Attorney Phil Westergren said Tuesday he would seek a grand jury indictment against the fundamentalist minister Les ter Roloff on a misdemeanor charge of operating child care centers without a license. For the past month Westergen had been seekinga similar indictment against Roloff Evangelistic Enterprises, the non profit corporation which operated three child care centers at Corpus Christi and Zapata. He said if convicted of the charge, Roloff could receive a maximum six months in jail or fine up to $1,000. Wester gren said he hoped the Nueces County Grand Jury would act on his request for the misdemeanor indictment during its Thursday meet ing. NATION Radioactive water mopped up Chi Omega jury choice continues Popeye creator dies at age 84 Talmadge asked to testify The Senate Ethics Committee Tuesday forced a confrontation with Sen. Herman Talmadge, D-Ga., by requesting in writing that he testify under oath in his financial misconduct case. Following a closed meeting that lasted more than two hours. Ethics Chairman Adlai Stevenston D-Ill., told reporters the committee agreed unanimously to request Talmadge’s appearance before the panel on Thursday morning, with his testimony to continue on Friday if necessary. Tal madge faces five charges of financial misconduct, the most serious of which involve the filing of $50,000 in false Senate expense claims and the conversion of campaign contributions to his personal use. WORLD Seventeen blacks get 167 years Six more executed in Ghana Ghana’s new military rulers Tuesday executed six senior officers in Accra, including the country’s former military ruler Gen. Fred W.K. Akuffo. A government announcement said the six died before a firing squad at the Teshie military range outside this West African capital at 5:30 a.m. EDT. It was the second round of executions since Flight Lt. Jerry Rawlings overthrew the Akuffo government in a coup June 4. All six were convicted by the special military court of misusing their positions to enrich themselves while in office, the new military rulers said. The Battalion R Workers Tuesday mopped up 1,000 gallons of radioactive coolant water that sprayed over the upper level of the containment building at the D.C. Cook nuclear plant in Bridgman, Mich. A plant spokes man said none of the radioactivity escaped into the environment. The radioactivity was described as "fairly low level by an official of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The incident occurred Monday during tests prior to putting the No. 2 nuclear reactor back on line. It was shut down May 19 when cracks were discovered in two feed water piping systems. Some j days. > Judge Edward Cowart in Miami suggested Monday if attorneys don’t speed up their questioning, “it’s going to take us six months to get a jury to try Theodore Bundy for the Chi Omega murders. A masked intruder slipped into the Chi Omega House at Florida State on Jan. 15, 1978 and attacked four sorority sisters as they slept. Two died — Lisa Levy, 20, and Margaret Bowman, 21, both of St. Petersburg. A fifth student who lived six blocks away was beaten brutally, and Bundy also is charged with that crime. Cowart re peatedly sustained objections to what he called “repetitious and irrel evant questions about how the prospective jurors felt about the case. Cowart dismissed seven prospective jurors on the trial’s opening day. rei Cartoonist Dave Fleischer, creator of Popeye, the spinacheating sailor, and Betty Boop, died of a stroke in Calabasas, Calif. Monday. He was 84. Fleischer and his brother Max were among the pioneers of movie animation, running a studio that was once considered sec ond only to Walt Disney’s in the field. Fleischer did the animation for Alfred Hitchcock’s film “The Birds, was twice nominated for Academy Awards, and in 1974 won the first "Annie, the top award of the Animation Society of America. The funeral is scheduled for today at Mount Sinai Mortuary in Hollywood. Oil rec< A&M Un dioxide g: The pr; assistant < out that o than thosi Dr. Cr the Resea meeting i The tes field of \\ 1250 psi i The W; which rer 1 utilizing bon dioxii Mexico, ( this targe The re percent c ported. C nitrogen i carbon di occupy al carbon di Seventeen black members of the outlawed Pan African Congress were sentenced to a total of 167 years imprisonment Tuesday in Bethal, South Africa for offenses under the country’s Terrorism Act. Supreme Court Judge D.J. Curlewis imposed individual sentences ranging from 30 years to 5 years in jail in the windup of a trial that lasted nearly 19 months. Sixteen of the men were found guilty of reviving the banned Pan African Congress and of sending men out of the country for guerrilla training and the violent overthrow of the government. They were also found guilty of of inciting riots in the black township of Kagiso, outside the mining town of Krugersdorp, about 30 miles west of Johannesburg. 1 LETTERS POLICY Letters to the editor should not exceed 300 words and are subject to being cut to that length or less if longer. The editorial staff reserves the right to edit such letters and does not guarantee to publish any letter. Each letter must be signed, show the address of the writer and list a telephone number for verification. Address correspondence to Letters to the Editor, The Battalion, Room 216, Reed McDonald Building, College Station, Texas 77843. 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